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Putin's Illiberal Democracy Bill of Rights Constitutional Rights in Action Foundation SUMMER 2016 Volume 31 No 4 PUTIN’S ILLIBERALDEMOCRACY President of Russia (CC BY 4.0) BY (CC Russia of President Russian President Vladimir Putin speaking at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow in 2012 for the Russian Federation National Awards. If you are a citizen of Russia today and you join an unautho- The Promise of Democracy rized demonstration or protest, you may be fined $9,000 and Twenty-five years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed. face years in prison. If you plan a demonstration but fail to The Warsaw Pact, the legal framework for Russia’s half first get approval from the government, or if a demonstra- tion for which you obtained approval causes property dam- century of domination of Eastern Europe, was officially age, you may be in for a much bigger fine and hard labor. terminated and many of the USSR (Soviet) republics achieved independence. The newly liberated states in- The subject of your demonstration can also cause stituted popular elections throughout, as did Russia it- you trouble. For example, if the demonstration you self, making it seem that the world was entering a new want to organize is for gay pride, you can be sure that phase of peace where the principles of Western-style your request for authorization will be denied. More- liberal democracy would flourish. over, you can be prosecuted for “offending the reli- The reality is that governments of former Soviet re- gious feelings of believers” if you question the publics often had the trappings of democracy but main- existence of God in an online forum, like a blog or tained an illiberal, or authoritarian, character. For chatroom. example, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus And if you are a political leader, your party must has held office since 1994. In 1996, he disbanded par- be sanctioned by the government. You might also pay liament but soon replaced it with a new parliament full for unsanctioned political activity with your very life. of his handpicked allies. He has bragged to the press of How did these circumstances arise in Russia? his “authoritarian ruling style.” ELECTIONS AND DEMOCRACY This edition of Bill of Rights in Action looks at case studies of factors affecting democratic processes in elections. The first arti- cle examines the rise of illiberal democracy in Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. The second article looks at the un- expected election of Truman to the U.S. presidency in 1948. The third article explores the impact and implications of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. World History/Current Issues: “Putin’s Illiberal Democracy,” by guest writer Patrick Jenning. U.S. History: “Harry Truman and the Election of 1948,” by guest writer Lucy Eisenberg, Esq., and CRF senior editor Damon Huss. U.S. Government/Current Issues: “Elections, Money, and the First Amendment,” by longtime contributor Carlton Martz. © 2016, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant to all recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799) Library of Congress of Library rights. The country also moved from a government- planned to a market economy. The government dis- tributed ownership of state-owned industries to private individuals. Unfortunately, despite attempts to ensure fair and equal distribution throughout the population, owner- ship of most enterprises ended up in the hands of gov- ernment and management insiders. In addition, the transition from a state-planned to a market-driven econ- omy led to serious drops in economic activity, severe in- flation, job losses, and shortages of consumer goods. The Rise of Putin From an early age, Vladimir Putin had wanted to join the KGB (the Soviet Union’s spy and security or- ganization). He pursued his goal despite the opposi- tion of his parents, both factory workers who had survived the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Told that the intelligence service preferred students Tsar Nicholas II (center) with members of his family, the Romanovs, with law degrees, he then enrolled at Leningrad State circa 1913. The tsar’s suppression of political opponents and handling University, hoping to be recruited. of World War I led to his abdication. He and his family were later ex- ecuted by the ruling Bolsheviks (Communists) in 1918. At last, in his final year of university, he was offered a positon in the KGB. He spent the first years of his ca- Since 1999, Vladimir Putin, the current president reer as a counterintelligence agent, monitoring the ac- of Russia, and his personal friends — wealthy busi- tivities of foreigners in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). nessmen, military figures, and members of the intelli- In the early 1980s, Putin received training in for- gence services — have dominated Russia’s economy, eign espionage and was sent to East Germany, where media, and political life. Russian military might is he worked with the East German intelligence agency, once again being used to threaten neighboring states the Stasi. His job was to find candidates suitable for and bolster Russian power abroad. The promise of a intelligence missions in the West that targeted West- democratic Russia seems to be vanishing. ern technology. When the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991, Putin Russia: A Long History of Tyranny returned to St. Petersburg. There he headed academic Before 1991, Russians had enjoyed perhaps only and governmental organizations involved with pro- seven months of democracy in a thousand years of its moting international relations and trade for the city. history. A feudal society until the early 18th century, By 1996, he had moved on to Moscow, where he Russia became a great European power under the Ro- would head a number of positions in the Boris Yeltsin manov Tsars (monarchs), who kept a large part of the regime, including the Federal Security Services, a suc- population in serfdom (semi-slavery) and controlled the cessor to the KGB. During this time, he also completed rest of the population with secret police, press restric- work on his dissertation for a Candidate in Science in tions, political imprisonment, exile, and execution. Economics, equivalent to a PhD in the West. The Tsarist monarchy was overthrown in a popu- Yeltsin appointed Putin to be acting prime minis- lar uprising in March 1917, which ushered in a brief ter in August 1999. One month later, a series of apart- period of Russian democracy. But that democratic ex- ment house bombings in Russian cities killed nearly periment ended five months later, when the Commu- 300 people. The Russian government blamed terror- nist Party came to power through revolution in ists from Chechnya, a largely Muslim former state of October 1917. Picking up where the monarchy left off, the Russian Federation. The Chechens had success- the Communist Party instituted old Tsarist practices fully gained independence a few years earlier after and added political indoctrination, widespread prop- fighting Russian forces to a stalemate. aganda, mass internal deportations, and prohibitions After the apartment bombings, Putin ordered the on the ownership of property and business. resumption of military operations in Chechnya. By Feb- With the end of Communist domination in 1991, ruary 2000, Russian forces had retaken Chechnya’s cap- Russia was poised for a birth of political and economic ital, Grozny, and began the process of reintegrating freedom. Under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, the Chechnya into the Russian Federation. first President of the Russian Federation, laws were Meanwhile, in late December 1999, Yeltsin resigned passed to assure political freedom and individual suddenly and named Putin as acting president. Three 2 WORLD HISTORY/CURRENT ISSUES BRIA 31:4 (Summer 2016) months later, Putin was formally elected president, having secured more than 50 percent of the votes. Putin in Charge Relatively unknown when he took over from Yeltsin, Putin focused on rebuilding Russia’s economy and reestablishing its international position in the world. Dur- ing his first two terms as president, from 2000 to 2008, Russia enjoyed impressive economic growth, due in large part to a worldwide surge in crude oil prices, one of Russia’s principal exports. Russia is the largest supplier of natural gas in the world, and its main customers are nations in the Eu- ropean Union. Over the eight years of Putin’s first two 4.0) BY (CC Russia of President terms, Russia’s economy grew 70 percent, its poverty Russian President Boris Yeltsin handing over power to Vladimir rate was cut in half, and disposable income doubled. Putin, who would then serve as acting president, in 1999. By 2008, Russia had regained the economic power it had experienced at the end of the Soviet empire, al- which is often heavily controlled by Putin’s allies, has though it continued to suffer a high rate of inflation. kept many opponents of United Russia off the ballot. Putin’s popularity grew alongside the Russian Political demonstrations are also severely re- economy. In 2000, he won the election with 53 per- stricted. Remember that protestors must obtain gov- cent of the votes. In 2004, he won with 71.9 percent. ernmental approval for demonstrations or face heavy As the Russian constitution limits a president to two fines and possible imprisonment. consecutive terms, Putin could not run in 2008. Many international organizations, such as Instead of running again, Putin endorsed and sup- Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, ported his protégé and former campaign manager, have been forced to register as foreign agents, sub- Dimitri Medvedev. Medvedev won with 71percent and jecting them to audits and raids in which the state then appointed Putin prime minister of the Duma, seizes their operating documents and records.
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